CHAPTER 4: MUM'S STORY

What about my mother? How did she ended up in the Lim family? Unlike my father, my mother came from a more privileged home. Her father (my maternal grandfather) was already a successful trader by the time my paternal grandparents and family moved to Sri Gading. She had an older brother and 2 younger sisters. Her father operated a thriving sundry shop and also traded in rubber.

How did maternal grandfather come to Malaya? They were also poor in China. The family had 2 boys and a daughter. My grandfather was the younger son. His name was Lee Kim Fu. One day the 2 young men decided to go to the city to seek their fortune. When they arrived in Chao Zhou (Teochew) city, they could not afford to pay for their board. They found an abandoned house and moved in. They did odd jobs. The elder brother worked for a salt trader. Soon he started small time business trading in salt too. And his business began to expand and soon he was a wholesaler in salt trading. He travelled to different parts of China to source and trade in salt. He set up a salt factory. The younger brother was roped in to help the older brother in the business. The older brother then built a big mansion and invited his parents and younger sister to stay with him.  .

( contrasting images of old city of Chaozhou and the city in more recent times)

However, the younger brother was not happy to work for his brother. He wanted to venture on his own. Family loyalty and obligations prevented him from making the move out. So he thought of a plan. (This was related to my mother by her gu-gu or aunt, my maternal grandfather's younger sister). The new house was big - indeed it was a mansion. One night, he put on some clogs and moved about the house, making eerie sounds. Next morning, he reported that he heard some ghostly sounds. He feigned fear of ghosts and begged to move out of the house.  So, before the elder brother's return from his business trip, the younger brother quickly left for Xiamen. He quickly hopped on to a boat heading for Singapore. In Singapore, he worked as a shop assistant. The pay was 12 Straits dollars a month. He sent back 6 dollars to his parents and saved 6 dollars. Board and lodging was on the boss, and he didn't spend a cent on himself. This went on for a few years. He moved to Sri Gading and teemed up with 3 friends to set up a sundry shop. Business did not take off and the joint venture failed. They dissolved the company but remained friends. Each one of them then set up different companies dealing with different products. Somehow, my maternal grandfather's business took off and business began to boom. He was dealing as wholesaler in rice  and rubber at the same time keeping his sundry shop. Even his former partners took goods from him. He did very well and even the older brother ( who had forgiven him for running off) came and visited him. I think he must be proud of his younger brother too.

                                                                  ( Straits Dollar )

His parents arranged for him to be married to rich family. He went back to China, got married and brought his bride to Malaya.My maternal grandmother's name was Liew Sook Lan. My mother was born in Sri Gading in 1930.

CHAPTER 3: EARLY YEARS 2

I can just imagine a little boy, grimy face, peering out of the door, waiting for his father to come home with the milk. The doting father taking delight at the sight of his son happily sucking the milk. All the hardship must be worth it - to see the delight in the boy's face. Grandma often said dad was lucky to be able to have sweetened condensed milk everyday. By the time my second uncle was born, life was even harder and they could not afford to buy any more milk. Thus the second baby had to be fed with breast milk. Now we know that mother's milk is best but to those  illiterate folks, they thought that mother's milk was inferior to the commercial brands. Grandma often reminisced : "Your poor uncle - we couldn't afford to buy milk and he was was constantly tugging at my breast." (That explains why grandma favoured 2nd uncle so much and spoiled him to bits)

Times were hard. Grandpa's job was barely enough to cover the rent and their living expenses. Besides, they felt obligated to send some money back to China to support their adopted parents . After my father, they had two more babies. One was stillborn. When the third baby came, they just could not cope and they decided to sell the baby. However the child died after a few days. Finally when my 2nd uncle was born, they decided to keep him. That was when the incident of the rickshaw happened. So they left Singapore.

My father's family came to Sri Gading in 1935 (when he was 8 years old). In Sri Gading, grandpa found a job as night soil carrier. Tough work but still not enough to feed the family. He then took on another job - selling fish. So after he had cleaned up from his first job, he would head to the market and bought on credit a box of fish. He would then peddled the fish to individual homes. By noon having sold off most of the fish, reserving some for the family, he would the return home for lunch and to rest a while. In the afternoon, he would cycle to the Malay kampongs and peddled sundries - flour, onions, ikan bilis... etc. In return he would buy bits of rubber from them and sell them to the rubber dealers.

There was a tiny school house - one classroom and a Chinese teacher taught rudimentary Chinese and numeracy to those who could afford to pay his fees. My grandparents could not afford to pay the fees so dad did not go to school. However he would hang around outside the school and watch the lesson being conducted. The teacher would chase him away . No money, no lessons. Shoo!! But dad would creep back and hid outside the classroom to catch some lessons. If he were caught again, more scoldings from the teacher. Scram!! This went on and on. The teacher complained to my grandparents. Finally grandparents managed to scrap some money and enrolled father in the school. he was already 9 years old when he started schooling.

Meanwhile, grandma had made quite a big clearing around the house. She planted vegetables, sweet potatoes, tapioca, chillies, sugar cane and these she would sell them to supplement the family income. She really worked hard on the land and I must say that she had green thumbs for her vegetable patch produced good yields. (Perhaps I inherited this love for planting from her).

Grandfather would ride his bicycle every other day to Batu Pahat to buy sundries for his mobile business in the Malay kampongs - Parit Yaani, Semburong, Sengkuang, Parit Butut, and many remote areas.

My father was no less enterprising. When he was free, he would hawk some fruits to his classmates. Sometimes there were free film shows by the government bodies - educational programmes. The whole village would flock to the open space to watch the shows. On and off, certain commercial companies would stage free films too. During these times, my father would buy some fruits - papaya, pineapples etc, as well as get the sugar cane from the garden . He would cut the fruits and sell them to the villagers. ( Mum recalled buying some fruits from him when she was a little girl). On weekends, he would rent a trishaw and cycle to Batu Pahat. There he would  pick up passengers ( Like the modern day pirate taxis). Before returning home, he would then buy a tin of cooking oil and then sell the oil to the villagers (perhaps at a slightly lower price than the sundry shops). He was about 11 or 12 years then.

CHAPTER 2: EARLY YEARS

Perception versus reality. Historical events are viewed differently by different people for different purposes. For example when i attended the BTN course a couple of years back, the lecturer painted the events leading to the fall of Malacca in 1511. Malacca was a prosperous port but the foreigners (i.e Chinese and Indians) living within the city were jealous of her prosperity and wanted the the spoils of the country for themselves. So they collaborated with the Portuguese to attack the city. (lecture was followed by ominous reminders not to let history repeat itself.) Hello? That was something new. When I was in school, studying the same event, I distinctly remember that the Sultan at that time was unjust, and imposed unreasonably high taxes on the traders, thus making business difficult. The Sultan had forcibly taken Tun Perak's daughter o be his wife, causing anger and resentment among his people. Thus they plotted to get rid of him, and the coming of the Portuguese gave them an opportunity. An accurate assessment of past events should be verified by at least 3 reliable sources, not just one person's interpretation. Thus in writing this, I've endeavored to be as accurate as possible by getting feedback from my parents and siblings.

Anyway, back to the story. Life was hard for the newly-wed, but they were not unhappy. I'm sure with each other for support, they could face life's challenges with more fortitude. Around that time, China was in the midst of revolution. Dr. Sun Yat Sen's vision of a new China caught the imagination of the younger and more progressive intelligentsia. The overseas Chinese too were caught in the throes of dynastic changes and many contributed money to this cause. The British were worried this new revolutionary spirit  might spread to Malaya. So they started rounding up those they deemed as potential trouble makers and deported them back to China. Grandfather's uncle was among those deported. He left a son (about 6 years old) with my grandparents. Fearing the worse, the Chinese community in Batu Pahat began to disperse and many families fled to different parts of Malaya and Singapore. Grandparents gathered whatever they had and fled to Singapore. There, grandfather worked as mobile ice-cream seller and later as a rickshaw puller and grandmother took in washing. The baby boy (father) was left in the care of the young nephew. (Years later, when my parents visited my grandfather's home village, they met up with this nephew and he recalled carrying father when grandma went out to do the laundry.) They were in Singapore for a couple of years. The uncle wanted his son to be sent back to China and so the young nephew was sent off with some other passengers and sailed back to China.  My father was about 2 years when they moved to Singapore.  

Grandfather doted on his baby boy.  Grandmother used to relate that each day, after selling the ice-cream, grandfather would invariably keep a stick to bring home to the waiting boy. However, the income from selling ice-cream was hardly enough to feed the family. So grandfather took to pulling rickshaw. Even then, with the little money earned each day, he would make sure to buy back a little can of hot milk for his boy. The little boy would wait patiently at the doorstep for his father to come home. After drinking his milk would he then go to sleep.

Life as a rickshaw puller was tough and the pay was pittance - about 2 cents per ride. One day a passenger refused to pay the agreed price. He would only pay one cent. Arguments ensued and granddad indicated that his 'big boss' might be roped in to settle the dispute. "So you are a member of a triad." Granddad wasn't but he gave the impression that he was. The man made a police report and the police came to question granddad. Ignorant, and fearing the worse, he and his family fled to Penggarang ( southern tip of Johore). It was a fishing village and he had a relative living there, who was a fisherman. He helped his relative in the fishing industry. Life was even tougher here. ( Penggarang was a marshy village and many inhabitants died from fever, possibly malaria) .According to grandma, "The smell of dried fish permeate the air. We ate fish everyday. No vegetables for vegetables had to be imported from Singapore. I felt nasaueated smelling the dried fish, and I wept copious tears every day." So after 3 months, at grandma's plaintive urgings, they decided to move away. They settled in Sri Gading.

Sri Gading then had large tracks of virgin land. There were a few Malay families here and there, living mostly upstream and in the interior. The Sultan of Johor used to hunt here. One day he shot a huge elephant. They found that the elephant had huge ivory tusks. Beautiful, still unbroken. The sultan's men sawed off the tusks and the place was named "Sri Gading" or place of beautiful tusks. The tusks are still displayed in the Johor palace museum.

Grandparents staked a piece of land and they began to cut down the trees to make a clearing for their new home. (Grandma often reminded us of this whenever she was angry with us : " I worked on this land, inch by inch.") They built a shack, just some wooden planks nailed together, thatched roof, no flooring , just mud floor. But it was home.

( Photo of the old, old house. My mother with my eldest brother)

There was already a small community of Chinese settlers there - settlement near the river. A couple of sundry shops, a butcher shop, a Pakistani baker and some others trading in rubber. A Chinese teacher also ran a literacy class for some of the settlers' children. Soon, more and more families came and settled here.  And the village began to take shape.

CHAPTER 1: HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

When Serene mooted the idea of each of us writing our memories of our past, I thought it was time to deliberately sourced the stories from my parents. All the while before this, we heard of snatches of stories here and there without asking any probing questions of  "Why? How? When exactly?" So this time I asked my mum about our grandparents' history.

HOW DID MY PATERNAL GRANDPARENTS MEET?

Lots of Chinese nowadays would travel back to China to find their 'roots'. Inevitably, many of them could trace their family tree back to the various emperors or some notable Chinese generals or some high ranking officials. Ours were of more humble beginnings.

My grandfather Lim Kim Tiok (林金德) came from Tongsan, China. He was adopted by his uncle ( his parents died early). They also adopted a girl and brought her up to be his future wife. So these two used to play together - more like brother and sister. So when the adopted parents wanted them to get married, grandfather objected to their plans. I'm sure there must be some tension over this issue. His adopted mother passed away and grandfather then packed his bags and took a ship that sailed to Singapore. From Singapore, he travelled to Batu Pahat, and joined a community who were also from his village. They were pig rearers. There he met another uncle and he worked for this uncle.

Grandma, Ho Swee Lian, came from the district of Jiao Ann. She too was adopted by a family who also brought her up as a child bride to the family's son. When they reached marriageable age, the parents arranged for their marriage. The son, (who had fallen in love with another girl from the same village), also refused to comply. He ran off with the girl. He was brought back and was forced to undergo the wedding ceremony with grandma. It was a loveless marriage. The man managed to deceive his family and on the pretext of going on a business trip, he once more eloped with his true love. Of course grandma was devastated. She soon set sail to Malaya to look for her husband. Upon enquiry, she found that he was residing in Batu Pahat ( near the present roundabout) and she travelled there to look for him. (He was a pig slaughterer) Her husband took her in. The "other woman" was deferential ( according to granny). She addressed granny as "elder sister" and each morning, would bring a basin of warm water for granny to wash her face. However , later, there were some cross words between granny and her husband - and granny, being the strong-willed character, decided to return to China. She felt so lost and abandoned. She met an old friend and the friend advised her to stay. The friend introduced her to a bachelor (i.e grandpa) and so she divorced her husband and married grandpa.

They were desperately poor. After their marriage, with no place to stay, they moved to the fringe of the jungle. There they found an abandoned hut and moved in.(now identified as Mile 7, Kluang Road) It was there that my father was born. Granny recounted : "I had only the clothes on my back and an extra change of clothing. There was no money to buy anything for the baby. But there were some old towels left behind by the last occupant and I used that to wrap the baby. A couple of months later, some friends come to look for us and gave us some old clothes for the baby."

Whatever her faults, one can't help but admire granny's strength of character. A more docile woman would have stayed back in China and continued to serve her adopted parents. It was no mean feat for an illiterate single woman to travel all the way from China to Malaya. It was no mean feat to birth her baby all alone, with no one to help her. I can't imagine what her thoughts were when she was going through all those sufferings. Grandpa defied convention (as did the other man) by refusing his parents' choice of a bride. No wonder these were the tough pioneers who could make it good in their new adopted country. I think one of the greatest thing the Communist did for China was to destroy those outmoded conventional practices of child brides.

SPENDING OUR ENRICH POINTS

With end of year looming closer, and our enrich points at the brink of being eliminated, what better way to use them than to spend a carefree weekend in KL? So we flew in to KL, checked in at the Royal Hotel ( formerly 'The Colonades') and had a blasting good time - walking, gawking, shopping, walking, buying, walking, eating, walking again!! 

We were glad we chose the Colonades over Park Royale as the former was smack in the middle of Bukit. Bintang. Lot 10 was just a step outside the hotel, Pavillion was just a step and a hop away and Berjaya Times Square was just round the corner. It was fun just gawking at the merchandise on display. Christmas decorations were on display. Here are some from Pavillion. The fountain changed 4 colours ( here I only showcased 2)

 The golden carriage was more of  the theme from 'Cinderella'

 Tea in Tokyo Street , Pavillion - macaroon, mocha bun and rosehip tea.

 Dad had maccha latte - the latte was so cleverly done

 So he as usual looked as pleased as Punch after that!!

 Ah, the simple joys in life. Happiness is discovering that you get 50 % discount on all LRT and Monorail rides!! Two monorail tokens for the price of one.

Three days getaway was invigorating!!

KOTA BELUD REVISITED

Whenever the town Kota Belud is mentioned, one would think of the colorful Tamus, the horses, the padi fields with Mt. Kinabalu in the background...... My friend Rumba (SIB) invited me to accompany her Kota Belud to visit some of the pre-schools she had set up. This lovely and energetic lady, an ex- lecturer, took early retirement to help the rural churches to set up pre-schools so that children in those areas would not be disadvantaged when they enter primary one. From one pre-school, the project soon expanded to 70 schools, as more and more rural folks realized the advantages of sending their children to these pre-schools. She was hoping that Basel churches would also take up similar initiatives.

 First stop was breakfast at some back alley. The 'Kon-lou' mee wasn't too bad. Chinese tea was free - a rarity these days.
We visited 'Tadika Kasih' in Kampung Souk. It was the first rural pre-school set up by the SIB church. There were 18 children and 6 of them were graduating. For a rural pre-school, I must commend the teachers' effort in teaching literacy and numeracy to these children. The children put up a lively presentation of songs and dances at their graduation ceremony.

The graduans all excited. Malina our volunteer driver in the background.

Other pre-school children waiting to perform

Rumba(second from right) together with the Chairman and the teachers and the graduans

Children singing "Give me oil in my lamp"

Children singing ""Every move I make" Nathan's favourite song

Ribbon and Flag dance

After that we went to Kampung Tinatut to visit a proposed new pre-school. The leaders of the church had asked Rumba to help set up this new pre-school. How rural is the church? "Tidak jauh dari Kampung Souk." was the reply. Now, when rural folks say "Tidak jauh", take it with a pinch of salt.It's 'tidak jauh' for them, but for us who are not used to the terrain, it's miles miles and miles of unpaved and pot-holed tracks. Don't take your Merc or Camry - nothing less than a Hilux. (If dad thinks the Pahang safari was bad, this is even 5 times worse). 

This not the road - just a shot I took when we stopped to ask for directions

We got lost at some point and had to retrace our route. Many times we had to get down from our Hilux to direct the driver so as to avoid some of the more treacherous sections of the terrain. Kudos to Ms Malina, our brave driver. We finally reached Kampung Tinatut. We asked the villagers where the church was. "Sana," pointing to a general direction. "OK, they said 'sana', said Rumba optimistically. "At least they didn't say "Saa..nn....aa" so it can't be very far." Oh, the "Sana" was another mile or so. Finally we had to   take the last bit of the route by foot.

The church was situated on top of a small hill. 

The church on top of the hill commands a panoramic view of the village

The parsonage was built by gotong royong

 The view was breath taking.

The lady pastor was pleased to see us. She had prepared some banana dessert for us. Yummy. But we had to share the table with the cat.

 Some young men were engaged in painting a 'Selamat Datang' sign for the church. I talked to them and asked them what they did for a living. Most of them were jobless and some tapped rubber to earn a living or kerja kebun as they were not able to find any job in town.

 Everywhere I looked, there were tarap trees - loaded with tarap fruit.Tarap fruit has a sweetish sickening smell. I wondered why the villagers don't plant fruits that have more value added such as durians. Tarap become soft and squissy when ripe, and thus cannot endure long distances. The villagers could not market the the tarap fruits due to the distance from the town and also the bad condition of the roads. 
So much arable land and such a waste of resources.

 

The trip had been very interesting as well as an eye opener for me. I can understand why the Bumiputera pastors are often so discouraged when they talk of their mission fields. I feel the richer urban churches could do more to help these rural churches so that they can rise up to help their own people.

LAVENDER

I just love the fresh scent of lavender. Thus, I have lavender soap, lavender handwash liquid and floor cleaners are also lavender scented. Serene's lavender bushes are doing well and she has enough to make me lavender tea, lavender sachets for our cars and here's a bunch of dried lavender flowers to grace our table.

BOUNTIFUL HARVEST

 I miss my vegetable garden. So coming home, it's a joy to behold the garden in its full glory. Dad got all excited too and he 'volunteered' to pick the long beans. 

The beans were over 90cm long!

The excited harvester

So much, I may have to give some away. Meanwhile, I've started on the lavender growth kit that Serene gifted me. Hopefully in 6-8 weeks, I should see some results.

NATHAN, THE PROBLEM SOLVER

Poor Nathan, on days with Granny, he's stuck in the house all day long. Since last week, he had been pointing to the door, saying, with much hope, " Out ? Drive car..." His ritual would be :

First he would say, " Wear shoes? " and then proceed to bring me his shoes. I would dutifully put on his shoes for him. Next he would say, " Key? Key?" and then lead me to the door. "Drive car. Out." Oh dear, I would then tell him, " No key." and try to distract him. Disappointed, he would then move on to other activities.

I think he must have been figuring out a solution the past week. Today, again  he asked for his shoes. Then  he lugged  his stool to the shoe cabinet. I was curious and followed him ( camera always in hand). He began searching for something up on the shelf.

Found it ! Ah ha - here's the key and then passed the key to me. " Out? Out? " Pointing to the door. Poor child. I had to distract him with other activities.

Next he dragged me to the side door. "Garden? Outside ?" "No Nathan, it's raining outside. Undaunted, he proceeded to lug his ever faithful stool again.Climbed up and started to  fiddle with the latch. Eureka! The door could be opened!! Oh dear, what's next?

Mummy's study. Oh no, Mummy's study is off limits. No problem. Lugged his stool again. Climbed up and twisted the knob - left, right, left, right.... Lo and Behold! The door opened!

After that he tackled the stove.Frying pan in hand, he announced that he wanted to : "Cook soup and rice and meat."

It was a day of discovery and triumph. Nothing could stop him. There was no where off limits. Lugging his faithful stool around the house, this boy is experiencing his new found freedom!! It was like saying, "Open Sesame!~" He opened the fridge and ran off with a bag of onions! He opened granny's bedroom door and climbed up the bed and began bouncing on the bed., pretending to sleep when I asked him to get down.  What a day of action. With Nathan running about, opening door, and granny chasing after him. Now, finally he's asleep. I wonder what he's planning next!!

Nathan da Vinci

Perhaps I should consider being a professional nanny. A friend did approach me to start a nursery or a play school. I laughed at the idea but now.......Having to look after an extra kid, i just find them so delightful. Here's Nathan with his friend Sophie. Sophie is all sugar and spice and everything nice...... a calming influence on Nathan's boisterous character. Here they are, watching cartoon together.

Nathan encouraging Sophie to push the bike and race with him. She was equal to the challenge.

 By end of the day, they were such buddies that they decided to exchange water bottles.........

Following day, I was all alone with Nathan again. We played dough and this got the child engrossed for a full 20 minutes.

Finally, the potential Leonardo Da Vinci produced his masterpiece..... Ta-da!! A dragon-like figurine. WSithout any help from me.

Of course I was excited. Told him to hold on while I went to get my camera. Here he is, admiring his work of art.

Alas, the second piece was more of a blob. Good effort though. Teacher's comment : "Nathan showed promise as a sculpture....."

THE GOLDEN GIRLS

They say "Life begins at sixty... or thereabout" and it's true. Been reading the book "The Geography of Bliss" by Eric Weineer. The author traverse round different parts of the globe to find the key to happiness. What makes people happy? Why are they happy? Is is money? He observed that Qatar has lots of money and the citizens had an army of foreign workers serving their need - yet the Qataris don't seemed happy. Is it the culture? The system that works like clock and makes our lives predictable? Is it our attitudes about life and people?

I think there's more than one path to happiness. One of them is relationship. My friend Choy Min and my sister Alicia came over for dinner. What a riot they created. The night started sanely with a simple dinner, followed by wine and tea. The conversation flowed seamlessly - picking up the thread where we last left (which was more than 5 years ago).. Here we are - looking so demure.....apple pie and cinnamon buns

Then the laughter started - bellyful. We laughed till our tears flowed.

Yes, life's good at sixty but ....Oh no - no close up please 

 Cheers to the Golden Girls

An after note - see that's how we were 30 years ago......

Thanks Serene for the cinnamon buns and Elaine for those lovely apple pies